


Else If

by kriegersan



Series: Hello world [2]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Choking, Dark fic, Gallows Humor, Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Mission Fic, Philosophy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4936894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriegersan/pseuds/kriegersan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think it’s what you make of it. Sure, a ‘self’ is a loosely defined concept that no one but you can experience. By your guidelines, at least. But if you’re given the tools, if you have the physical world placed on your physical shoulders, I think it’s your job to use your experience, however subjective, to improve the physical world for the benefit of something greater than yourself.”</p><p>(Early Philanthropy, still pre-relationship, their first real mission together. Things go a little too well, and some heavy truths come to light.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Else

“Okay, so, are you familiar with the concept of ego death?”

“Ego death?”

“The concept of… hm, okay let me explain. There’s a theory, that we manifest a sense of self to protect ourselves from the physical world. That a ‘self’, in the technical sense, doesn’t exist - that the brain is just an information processing system constantly trying to settle into a stable state to make sense of the unpredictability of real life. Ego death is the destruction of your ‘self’, accepting the meaninglessness of the physical world, and the existence of your reality within it.”

“The mind-body problem. I’m familiar with the concept.”

“Right! Okay, so, a ‘self’ is a phenomenon that exists only in our minds. Our brains never actually directly interact with the world; our eyes receive light, our optic nerve converts it, and what we experience is what our brain perceives as reality. The translation between the physical and the phenomenal.”

“Like the ‘rubber hand’ experiment?”

“Yeah, exactly like that. Jeez, Dave, you really know your stuff.”

“Heh.”

Otacon huffs, pulls his legs up in the passenger seat. “But essentially, the real question is the question of sleep. Your consciousness basically ‘shuts down’ when you sleep and yet--”

“--you can still experience physiological experiences, like really having to piss at like two a.m., right? Your brain ‘re-activates’ your consciousness to deal with a physical phenomenon. The external world still exists even when your internal world doesn’t.”

“Exactly.”

“So, the theory you’re arguing is, how isn’t it that the experience of consciousness and physical interaction with the ‘real world’ aren’t one in the same? Right?”

“Yeah! And who’s to say that subjectivity, that is our _subjective_ experience of the physical world isn’t the ‘right’ experience? What really happens to our consciousness in sleep? Are we always connected, to something bigger? Or does that end when we ‘shut down’.”

“Hmm.” Snake flicks the turning signal, merges into the right lane. There are no cars on the road, but it’s a process, a procedure. “And this is why I shouldn’t have closed your laptop screen?”

Otacon rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dave.”

“Kind of a roundabout way to get to the point.”

“There was no point. I thought we were just having a theological discussion.”

“And also the point.”

“Yeah, also the point. Please don’t touch my computers.”

“Gotcha.” Snake one-hands the wheel, grabs his smokes, pulling one out with his mouth. Otacon opens the glovebox, roots around for a lighter, at his askance. It’s dark outside, and they have miles and miles to go.

“But anyway,” continues Otacon, passing Snake the procured Zippo, scowling with disapproval, “Ego death. The concept of destroying your conceptual self. Of accepting that your ‘self’ is a social construct, shaped by the world around you - by ‘social memes’, uh, as it were. That it’s a projection to protect your consciousness’ interpretation of data that your physical self collects in the physical world.” 

“So basically we’re all fleshy, emotional computers.”

Otacon pushes his glasses up, sees the road ahead through smudges and the bokeh of distant street lights. “I guess so. When you put it like that. Why wouldn’t humans want to create a flawless organization system in our exact image? I mean, that’s all we are. High-level organizational systems with adaptive AI. Sex drives instead of C: drives. Ha.”

His face heats as he realizes he shot straight to sex. He hopes Snake glosses past that.

“I don’t know,” says Snake, smoke between his teeth. Otacon releases the breath he’d been holding. “I think it’s what you make of it. Sure, a ‘self’ is a loosely defined concept that no one but you can experience. By your guidelines, at least. But if you’re given the tools, if you have the physical world placed on your physical shoulders, I think it’s your job to use that experience, however subjective, to improve the physical world for the benefit of something greater than yourself.”

Distantly, Otacon realizes that this is Snake rationalizing a burden that was placed on him from ‘creation’, that he has no reason to accept. A perfect killing machine. A weapon to be pointed. Still, he chooses his own path. It’s a soul-destroying concept. Otacon tries not to linger on it.

But still, he does enjoy a good, healthy debate. 

“But how can you be sure that physical world is what you perceive it as? I mean, isn’t that the core of the argument? Your reality, and my reality, they’re not necessarily one and the same.”

“I get that.” He takes a long draw, flicks his ashes out the gap in the window. Otacon rolls his own down to filter out smoke. “I’m no neuroscientist, not a philosopher. Just a grunt, doing his duty. But I’ve perceived enough to understand that you and I, right here, right now. What we’re doing, what we’re fighting for; this is real.”

“I guess you’re right. Besides, REX wouldn’t physically exist if my ‘self’ hadn’t dreamed it up in the first place.” He laughs, self-consciously. “Leave it to me to unleash a death machine into the free market because I wanted so badly to believe I was doing something good for the world.”

“No, Hal. Your experience of the world led you to believe that people are intrinsically good. You built something that meant something to you, in that image.” Snake exhales smoke, stares straight ahead. “Other people interpreted your physical contributions in a way that reinforced _their_ world view.”

“Meaning nukes. Weapons of mass destruction.”

“Yep. And we’re back to subjectivity again.”

“Yeah and, subjectively, I’m an idiot.”

“A really smart idiot.” 

Otacon makes a face, and Snake is smirking back at him. He turns back to the road. “But what I mean is,” Snake continues, eyes shadowed in the low light of the driver’s console, “your past is an illusion. It doesn’t exist anymore. If you hadn’t created REX, another starry-eyed engineer, probably one with less of a moral compass than you, would’ve put something else in its place. You ever read _Fahrenheit 451_?”

“In high school, I think. Book burning?”

“That’s the one. At the end of the book, it’s argued that humanity is like a phoenix -- an eternal cycle of life, death, rebirth. That we’re doomed to endlessly repeat our own mistakes.”

“Ah, but it isn’t it more that mankind has something a phoenix doesn’t? That we create cultural artifacts with which to remember our mistakes? And learn from them?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I thought so.”

“So what I’m saying,” says Snake, slouching down in the driver’s seat, “It doesn’t matter if you created REX. It’ll be created a thousand times over. What matters is what you do differently with that knowledge, that experience, for the future.”

“Right.”

“Yeah. Meaning, building an even bigger kill-bot.”

“ _Dave_.”

“We can arrange a fight to the death in the middle of Central Park. Like _Rock’em Sock’em Robots_.” Snake grins, boyishly, and Otacon can’t stop staring. “That’ll be one for the history books.” 

“And what information, Dave, do you think that humanity could gather from a public giant robot fight, costing us thousands of casualties and hundreds of millions of dollars?”

“You’re the anime nerd, Hal. You tell me.”

“You’re a dick.”

“I imagine it’d have something to do with ham-fisted religious parallels and jacking off next to an unconscious girl.”

“Ugh, shut up, already.” He jabs a fist into Snake’s shoulder, jostles him, receives a nudge back for his efforts. “I get it, you didn’t like _End of Evangelion_.”

“Never said I didn’t ‘like it’. That’s just what you perceive based on the information you’ve received.”

“Smart ass.” 

Otacon looks out into the night. Everything keeps crashing down on him. What he’s doing, what he needs to do, what he’ll continue to do until his dying breath.

A hand, firm and reassuring, lands on his shoulder. Snake is looking at him, half at the road, the long stretch of pavement before them. There are half-moons under his eyes, and he desperately needs a shave, but to Otacon, it’s what he needs to see, right here, right now. 

“You should get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn to drive.”

“Sure, yeah,” he mumbles, cranking the seat back into a reclining position. The seatbelt bites into his neck, but he’s a stickler for safety, leaving it as he drops his head back into the headrest. 

Snake flicks on the radio, the white noise of news reports, traffic reports, reports, white noise. A constant stream of information.

Otacon closes his eyes. Shut down.

* * *

When Snake wakes him up, they’re parked at a rest-stop in the middle of nowhere, the early springtime rays of dawn making him wince as he rouses out of slumber. Snake’s still alert, could probably go for a few more hours, but Otacon knows how restless he can get sitting around, needs some sort of activity beyond teasing the shit out of him or intellectual debates.

This is how they end up facing each other in the clearing, Snake’s mouth set in a flat line, taking in every detail of their surrounding. There’s nobody around to see them, at least, as Snake takes his wrists, tugs him forward. 

“Seriously?” Otacon asks, weakly, because the last time they’d trained, he’d ended up thrown on his ass in just about every direction, Snake strict and effective, pushing him to the limit. “How am I gonna sit in a car for fifteen more hours if you bruise my tailbone again?” 

With Snake, it’s been an endless application of high-protein food and morning drills to build up some muscle mass, and even if he complains and moans, Otacon isn’t entirely miserable about the beginnings of abs or arm definition on his wiry form. Snake continues to bother him about his sleep cycle, though, drives him up the wall about his coffee consumption in place of proper food and rest. Previously, he’d never taken the soldier for a mother hen, until he’d spent upwards of half a year living with him, listening to him bitch endlessly about dishes left in the sink or Otacon forgetting to shower for a few days, which isn’t even that big of a deal.

Snake tells him that he is a liability, with no understanding of self-defense, with decreased brain function from exhaustion, without some form of organization in his life that he’s never had a reason to want, before. Snake packs these values into him like executables. Otacon is still in the process of installation.

“I think you’ll be okay,” says Snake, the mask of quiet concentration slipping for a moment to offer a reassuring smile. He raises Otacon’s wrists to chest-level, sets his hands around his throat. 

Otacon swallows, feels the shift of corded muscle under his fingertips, Snake’s pulse at his palm. The clearness of his eyes, the amount of trust it must require for him to put himself into this position. Not that Otacon could hurt him, anyway. Not like this.

His skin is so very warm.

“Okay,” Snake starts, “This is a pretty basic chokehold. If your attacker is coming at you from the front, they’ll probably go for the neck. That means, you need to do anything you can to get their hands off of you and incapacitate them, so that you can get away.”

Snake’s hands shift from his wrists, up to his forearms, thumbs set in the crook of Otacon’s bare elbows. He suddenly feels weird and awkward in his t-shirt, the beginning of sweat starting under his arms.

“There’s a pressure-point here that you can exploit. Feel that? Set your thumbs into the crease of the elbow, and if you press down--” Otacon feels the tinge of pain in his arms, hands releasing at Snake’s throat, “--you’ll cause pain, and the hands will release. Giving you time to retaliate.” 

He arcs his freed hand upward, stops at the column of Otacon’s neck. He swallows, feels the edge of Snake’s palm graze his flesh. 

“If you hit hard enough, you can sever the wind-pipe and kill them. At the very least, you can hurt or disorient them.”

“Well, I don’t want to kill anybody.”

Snake frowns. “I know, Hal. But if you have to--”

“I don’t want to kill anybody.”

“Okay.”

He picks Otacon’s hands up again, sets them back around his neck. “Moving on. The pressure-points are only really helpful if you’re strong enough to utilize them. You’ll get there. Another tactic you can use is by exploiting the joint.”

He straightens his palms, flat and hard like knives, knocks them down into Otacon’s elbows, his hands sliding down and away from Snake’s shoulders. “This is probably the better method for you to take. Strike downward and the joint will bend, as it does, and you’ll be given opportunity to retaliate, and get away.”

Otacon lets his hands drop to hang at his side. “If you’re going to hurt someone, you want to do it in the places you can inflict the maximum amount of damage in the minimum amount of time.” He gestures. “Eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knees.” 

“Ears?”

“Yeah. An open-hand slap to the sides of the head can fuck up the inner ear, really throw off someone’s sense of balance. A bit harder to execute, but effective, in a pinch.” He grins, steps forward. “Okay, I’m going to put my hands around your throat. I’ll walk you through one more tactic, and you can try the different techniques, see what feels most natural.”

“Okay.”

Snake steps closer, hands coming up to Otacon’s throat, thumb set in the v of his collar. Otacon swallows, self-consciously, hyper aware of Snake’s close proximity.

“Put your hands where I told you.”

He curves his fingers around the back of Snake’s elbows, thumbs coming to rest on the crease. “Feel around. There’s resistance where the pressure point is found, it’s a little different on everyone.”

He presses down with his thumbs, finds tension there. Snake’s hands are steady, but he feels the reactive twinge of fingers on his skin. “Okay. Now, straighten your hands. Good, like that. Hit down on the joint.”

Otacon does, practicing. He goes through the motions, because the idea of hurting Snake bothers him. Not that he really could. He likes the weight of his grip, anyway.

“Okay, again, like you mean it. Better. One more thing you can do, is use their weight against them. Since you’re right-handed, put your right hand over my arm, and under the opposite.”

He reaches for Otacon’s right hand, pulls it over his opposite. “Thread your fingers together. There’s a lot of strength in that gesture, because you’re creating a resistance point. Then, you can twist your right arm down--”

“Like this?”

“--More like here. Then push up into them, and knock your attacker off-balance.” 

Otacon twists, and Snake’s hands come up off his throat. 

“Now throw your weight in, and--”

He forces himself inward, and Snake tips onto one foot, effectively releasing him.

“Like that?”

“Like that.” 

He receives another one of those shoulder claps for his effort, and he’s grinning because training with Snake, while terrifying and kind of brutal, is honestly the coolest thing he’s ever done. He’s gotten a lot better, too, and Snake clearly enjoys it, likes instructing, doing things with his hands. It’s a bonding exercise.

“Let’s practice those moves seriously, until you can do it without thinking. Then we’ll try from the back.”

They practice until Otacon’s out of breath, until he’s slotting his hands into Snake’s elbows with something resembling actual force. Until Snake is satisfied that the movements are coming to Otacon from his lizard brain, and not the part that’s analyzing and processing every action he takes. 

“In the field, you don’t have time to think. You have to react,” he says, as Otacon’s gulping water and plying himself with whatever food they’d had in the car, “You only have a few seconds, because if you wait, they will kill you. If you hesitate, they will kill you. They won’t use restraint just because you look like a civilian.”

“It’s not like we’re at war, Dave. We’re hardly fighting insurgents in the middle east.”

“No, we’re just fighting in the same America that built Metal Gear in the first fucking place, then tried to nuke us on their own territory.” There’s anger, hot and burning in his voice. It disappears just as quickly as it came. “There is no ‘us vs. them’ anymore.” He snatches the water bottle out of Otacon’s hand, pours some into his mouth.

“Well, ‘us’ as in us ‘us’ and them as in--”

“Everybody else.” Snake swallows, and Otacon takes in the glisten of his skin, the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, “The point is, Hal, what we’re doing, people _will_ try to kill you. So you have to be prepared for that.”

“Right.”

“Ready to go again?”

“Yeah, give me a minute.”

They set up to practice, and Snake is behind him, Otacon feels a hand at his back. “I’m going to put my arm around you. Most of the military here is trained in some form of CQC - this is a standard chokehold.”

He puts his right arm over Otacon’s shoulder, the crook of his elbow up over Otacon’s neck, bends him forward to slot his opposite hand behind his head, pinning him in place. His glasses dig into his face in this position, and his back curves to try and let himself breathe. He feels stifled in Snake’s muscular arms, the body heat from the other man makes his shirt stick to his back, and all he can smell is cigarettes and sweat.

“Okay, so you see how you’re bending back like that? This is the worst thing you can do, because as soon as your spine curves, you lose all the strength from your core. This way, they can put you down--” He tips Otacon back, puts him down on the ground on his ass, “--and as soon as you’re on the ground, it’s game over.”

Snake steps back, and Otacon watches as he demonstrates.

“This is the movement you want to take.” He crouches, pulls in, dips his chin inward. “Your legs are stronger in this position. Think of yourself like a tripod - covering more area with three points rather than two points of contact. With your knees forward, you have more buoyancy in this position, and it’s harder to throw you off-balance.”

“Ah, I see. W-what do I do with my hands?”

“I’m getting to that. Hold the fuck on, Hal.” He smiles, demonstrations the movement again, dropping his weight, hands pulling inward. “See here? I’m at an advantage now, because my hands are primed to swing back into the attacker’s groin, or up towards their eyes.” He strikes a fist backwards, then over his shoulders with his fingers extended to an imaginary face.

“I’m not getting it.”

“Okay, get behind me. You’re the attacker.”

Otacon awkwardly sidles up to Snake, who manhandles him into position, directing his arms into a proper choke hold. Otacon is immediately aware of their close proximity, Snake’s strong shoulders pressed up against his chest, the thunder of his heart, his breath against Otacon’s arm. “You see?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now, I’ll show you how I would move out of this, real time.”

Snake does the squat motion again, dips forward, Otacon coming along for the journey whether he wants to or not. Snake’s hand swings back, in demonstration, but stops before reaching a particularly vulnerable area, hands over his shoulder not quite far enough for Otacon’s eyes. He’s twisted out of the hold by Snake over-rotating his arm, and he ends up in the dirt again, Snake’s hand coiled over his wrist.

With the barest of pressure, a knee rests on his head, an answering shot of sudden arousal spiking through him, before he’s scooped up off the ground, back to his feet. “Did that make more sense? Want me to show you one more time?”

“I think I’ll try.” 

He’s not so sure that he can handle having Snake pressed up against him that way, again.

“Good.” 

They get back into position, and okay, this isn’t exactly innocuous either, he can feel Snake’s breathing against his neck, the pressure of his hips, but he gives it a shot when Snake tells him to, bends his knees, rocks forward into it. 

He gets the motion after some constant repetition, Snake correcting him over and over, until he’s comfortable ‘pretending’ to retaliate. It’s only once he gets used to it, that his hand flies back a little too fast, and he actually ends up full-strength hitting Snake straight in the balls.

Snake lets go, falls back, and Otacon is already freaking out because hitting a super soldier in the junk is probably going to get him a gun to the face. 

“Ow.”

“Oh, God, Dave, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says, with a wince, hand coming to protectively cover his crotch. “I’ve never seen an amateur’s self-defense training session that didn’t end with someone accidentally getting sac-tapped. Don’t worry about it. Fuck.”

A nervous laugh bubbles out of Otacon, and then Snake is laughing, too, gruff and snarky. Otacon reaches down, Snake’s palm slapping into his, and he lifts his partner up. He’s still bent in pain, but everything is totally and completely fine. He’s not even armed, and Otacon’s not scared for his life, mostly.

Still, he forces himself not to look at where Snake’s hand is, even if his eyes keep catching peeks at the way his hand is moving, massaging. This is just too much for his poor analytical brain to handle.

“I think that’s enough for now, Rambo.” He pats Otacon’s back again with his free hand, and they start wandering back to the car. “We need to review weapon disarmament soon, but that can wait until my testicles drop again.”

His face is on fire. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

“I’m just riding your dick about it, Hal. Lighten up.”

Why did he have to say that. Otacon wishes he didn’t have that mental image. It permeates his consciousness, and his brain gets away with him before he can help it. He groans into his hands, even as Snake grins at his total mortification, ushering him back to the vehicle.

They prop themselves up against the hood of the car, Otacon forcing himself to drink more water, as Snake lights a smoke.

“So, where’d you learn to fight anyway?” Otacon asks, wiping a bit of spillage from his lip. “I mean, originally.”

They don’t really talk about Snake’s past that much, or Otacon’s for that matter, but he figures it can’t hurt to ask after his hand’s now been formally acquainted with Snake’s balls. He’s dying to know, even if he probably won’t get any answers.

“Big Boss,” he says, flatly, breathing smoke through his nose. “Mostly, anyway.”

“Big Boss!” Otacon repeats, unable to help himself. Even to civilians, Big Boss is a legend, or a nightmare. Something far away. His nose wrinkles in confusion. “But, wait, didn’t you--”

“Kill him?”

The silence stretches between them, for a long, lonely moment. 

Otacon croaks, finally, weakly, “Yeah…” 

He feels that wall shake and raise, casting shadows, and he immediately regrets asking. The Snake from five minutes ago that had been laughing and teasing retreats into his shell, the cold, professional mask taking over.

“Let’s go.”

“Sorry. I-- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Snake grunts. “It’s fine.” Finishes his cigarette. He retreats to the passenger’s side door, while Otacon adds another line item to his long list of regrets, hesitantly crawling into the driver’s seat. 

Snake turns his back on his partner, and pretends to sleep. Otacon frets. And drives.


	2. If

Their safe-house is another shithole, a one-room, shag-carpeted something Nastasha’s arranged, but at least it has hot water, a fully stocked kitchenette, and a small-scale armory hidden in the vents. The newly established Philanthropy is a fast machine. 

Otacon disappears into the bathroom as soon as they’re done clearing the place, desperately needing some space, because Snake is still being weird and moody and he’s not sure he can handle the tension anymore. 

They have work to do. They’re due for a real job, an actual mission this time-- Mei Ling had gotten a tip off about some REX-related weapon’s development out of one of the private military bases that have been seemingly popping up all over the midwest lately. They’ve been planning for weeks to infiltrate, and they’re ready. If Snake can even look at him, that is.

Otacon stares at his blurry feet, and beyond it the drain, water circling in frothy spirals. He can’t help but play the events of the day in his head like a movie, picking out the scenes where he utterly fucked up, focusing on the words out of his partner’s mouth. That closed, distant look on his face.

His hand curls around his dick before he can’t help himself, the muscle-memory of Snake’s body pressed up against his guiding his actions. His cock firms in his hand, and he dips his head into the stuttering spray of the water, teeth clenching.

For a few months now, the fantasy of Snake and Meryl fucking has been his go-to jerk-off material, whether he likes it or not. He can’t think of anything strong enough to overpower his stupid, guilty brain, but he can’t get his partner out of his head, can’t get the idea of him creeping down Meryl’s body, head crushed between her thighs, the picture of her pulling his thick hair, moaning, curling up around him. His strong arms set in the crease of her hips, pinning her open.

He knows that Snake would kill him if he ever found this out - masturbating to thoughts about your partner and his ex fucking is hardly a respectful thing to do. It’s so incredibly inappropriate, and he doesn’t even know how they broke up, but Otacon can’t help it, stifling a groan, hurtling towards orgasm because he knows it’s a little suspect to spend too much time in the shower.

Once he’s clothed, he bee-lines to his computer, starts going over maps and stats. He can feel Snake’s eyes on his shoulders, as they both mutually pretend that nothing happened earlier, that everything is fine. 

“So how’s it look?”

Otacon whirls, finds Snake standing too close to him, looking down at the screen. “Gah! Don’t do that!”

“What?”

“That-- that creepy silent stalker thing! And staring over my shoulder, I told you--”

“Sorry. Just curious.” He backs off, sits on the edge of the bed, where he’s laid out his inventory. They’re still going in light, so it’s a small kit, mostly flash-bangs and tranq rounds. And C4. “You feel ready?”

He’s a little perturbed that Snake is acting like Otacon didn’t ask ill-timed questions about his act of patricide, but he rolls with it nevertheless. “Yeah, I think so. I mean, I have my stealth-camo, if need be. Still trying to get the battery life to last, though.”

“Hrm,” Snake responds, leaning back on his hands. “I’m still not sure why you can’t do this more remotely.”

“Come on, we've been over this! I need to be close enough to access an AP. This is a military base, Dave. Private military. Their network protocol is more complicated, with 24 hour monitoring, I can’t just bully my way in from an external address without being detected, even if I scramble my IP or use a VPN. Better to do it from their access points, where I can cycle through their internal DHCP. I just need to get close enough, and I can hunker down, while you do your thing.” 

“Taking pictures. Gathering evidence.”

“Correct.” He adjusts his glasses, types with his free hand.

“And blowing shit up.”

“And blowing shit up. If there’s actually anything to blow up, that is.”

The plan is to procure any photographic evidence of a new REX iteration being developed on American soil, and blow it sky high. Then, to release the proof of its existence to the American public through a series of undetectable proxy connections. To bring some truth to the rumors circulating among the press and public about what exactly happened in Alaska. Nastasha’s still trying to get that book published without it being censored to shit.

The intel is sound, Mei Ling having fact-checked it to death, and the reality of what they’re about to do starts Otacon’s pulse hammering in his neck. He could be thrown into prison for millions of years. He could also end up dead, or tortured, which is far more likely.

“It’s still too conspicuous for you to be that close to the base.”

“Well, I’m just going to look at map data, see if I can’t hack into any security camera footage from the surrounding area. There’s gotta be something.”

“Let me know what you find.” 

“Right.”

Otacon buries himself in technology. He runs programs, makes calculations, while Mei Ling offers him any intel she collects from her various military sources. After a few hours of digging, they nail down Otacon’s hideout spot to a maintenance shed to the southwest, mostly overlooked on the night patrol, just past one of the insertion points. Its proximity to the office facilities makes it invaluable.

“And you’ll come in from right here. There’s a hole in their security, you should be able to slip right past.” Otacon clears his throat, Snake watching his finger where it stabs at the map. “Once you’ve infiltrated the base and found whatever they’ve managed to build, you can double back this way. We can converge here, and Nastasha’ll have a getaway vehicle arranged for us at this point.”

“Not bad,” he replies, leaning in. “There’s some good cover near your post, in case you run into any trouble. Shouldn’t be too difficult for me to get to you if I need to.”

“I promise I won’t be a burden. I won’t slow you down.”

“I wasn’t implying that you would,” Snake assures, with that deadpan manner, “It’s a factor, Hal. We can’t account for every possible scenario. If the stealth-camo fails, or you get jumped, I’m closeby.”

Otacon’s eyebrows crease in confusion. “Well… I, uh, guess that’s a tactical advantage, then.”

“Yes.” Snake crosses his arms. “You should get some sleep.”

He obeys. They only have a few more hours until nightfall, now. Otacon lays there, counting every second.

* * *

They make it in without preamble. The stealth-camo works flawlessly, and Otacon holes up in his position, and starts working. His laptop is whirring with the effort where it’s perched on his thighs. They don’t have much time.

The nanos they’re using allow him to view Snake’s radar, lets him see precisely where the soldier is in relation to the guards. Conversely, Snake can see where he is, too. Mei Ling had been working tirelessly on increasing its functionality, and Otacon’s pleased to see her hard work pay off, in the form of his own little glowing blue dot.

“Okay, the entrance to the storage facility should be here, according to that intel we found in the office. You should see a keypad on your five.”

“I’ve got eyes on it.”

“Okay, I’ll see if I can crack it.”

He runs crawlers through just about every NFS mount on their servers, calling functions, trying to pull as much data as fast as he can. His ears are ringing as he tries to listen to his surroundings, but the adrenaline from just what they’re discovering is making him weirdly giddy, even if his hands are steady and quick.

“Got it. Okay, Snake. Head through that door, I’m adding the new coordinates to the Soliton radar. It should lead us straight to where they’re storing Metal Gear.”

Or at least, the 1/3rd of a slightly simplified REX derivative they’d managed to assemble based off of need-to-know schematics, procured from the black market. Hundreds of millions of dollars of dirty money spent on one unfinished beast of a machine - from what they’ve found in the files, it won’t fire quite as big of a payload as its namesake, but could pack one hell of a punch over land. 

“Okay, I’m in. I’ll get to work.”

“Great.”

He screws his way into email accounts, backups and archives, watches the little blip representing Snake breeze past patrol and behind cover. It’s like he isn’t even real.

“Holy shit, Otacon.”

“Metal Gear?”

“You know it. I’ll get some glamour shots, set the C4, and meet you back at the extraction point in ten. You got that?”

“Loud and clear.”

He starts severing his connection, eases off, carefully so as not to alert anyone monitoring the connections. He watches the blip move around, counting the minutes, before it’s time for him to go. 

Otacon stands, stealth-camo engaging, laptop safely stored on his back, and edges his way out of the maintenance shed, looking over head at the surveillance camera. It’s pointed in the opposite direction, oblivious to his presence. He turns, checks his other side, the way Snake had drilled into him over and over again, before heading towards the perimeter fence. 

He clears it through the unlocked door, and he’s almost out of the woods until he spots a one-man patrol out of the corner of his eye. He’d been careless, forgotten to check his radar. Snake is going to kill him. He freezes, sticking close to the wall, terrified that this guy is going to notice the mirror reflectiveness of the stealth-camo, that he’s going to get spotted and die. 

He notices.

Otacon holds his breath.

The sentry tilts his head, checking his 12, where Otacon is situated stone-still. He comes closer, automatic at the ready, and this is it, this is the end, rest in pieces, Hal Emmerich.

“The hell?” 

He kicks outward, and Otacon can’t help but gasp as the camo shorts out on contact, and he’s suddenly, starkly visible. 

“What the-- who the _fuck_ are you!” 

Then, there’s the muzzle of a gun pointed between his eyes, trigger finger at the ready, and Otacon reacts, heart in his throat as he’s reaching for the gun, pushing it up, away from his face, the way Snake had taught him.

Otacon has no idea what he’s going to do next, because it’s not like the gun is in his hands or pointed in the right direction, but he doesn’t have to think because there are gloved fingers sliding over the guard’s mouth, the base of a palm against the cervical spine, and Otacon hears this sickening _crack_ before the man goes limp in his assailant’s hold, gun clattering to the ground at his feet.

And there, a corpse rapidly cooling in his arms, is Snake, jaw clenched with concentration, sweat beading at his bandanna. His arms ripple with the exertion of holding the dead weight, but he drops his hands back to under the man’s armpits, keeping him from crashing down.

“Otacon.”

He looks hard at his partner, who is paralyzed and hyperventilating, a breath away from a dead man’s face. 

“ _Otacon_.”

“You killed him. You just fucking killed him.”

Just like he’d shot Sniper Wolf. But she’d wanted to die. This was just some kid, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Right in front of him. How many more, like him, had died at his hands? It had always seemed so far away before.

“I know.” He stares right through Otacon, where he’s still straining to breathe. “Help me hide the body. _Move!_ ”

Otacon’s gut twists, but he bends down, picks up the feet. Helps Snake stash him nearby, before they take off toward the vehicle, parked about a mile away from the base.

Snake pulls out a detonator once they’re in the car. Presses down.

Distantly, the echoing crashes remind Otacon of fireworks on the 4th of July.

He’s still struggling to draw in a full breath when Snake throws the car in gear, and they keep the headlights off as they change roads about ten times, to where they’ve got a second vehicle to switch into, in case someone spotted their first near the base. They have another safe house a few towns over, somewhere that won’t be crawling with government officials and military police in a few hours.

A flat palm lands on his chest, pressure, and it’s just Snake, throwing concerned looks at him as he mostly focuses on the road. “Breathe, Hal. Just breathe. Calm down.”

Otacon can’t feel his touch, can’t look at those hands and not picture the sentry’s horrified face, only inches from his own, as the light went out from behind his eyes. Hot tears threaten to rise.

“I’m trying,” he responds, finally, his fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of his pants. “You-- you didn’t have to kill him.”

“He saw your face. He was going to kill you.”

“You don’t know that. You could’ve just knocked him out. He was a person. An American. He probably had a family,” he croaks, “Besides, the government already thinks we’re terrorists. We _are_ terrorists.”

“And you want to give them a fucking eyewitness report that we’re responsible for _that_?” he snarls, jerking his thumb back to the thick plumes of smoke bubbling up over the horizon, miles behind them. “They’d hunt us down like the dogs we are, and put a bullet in of each of our skulls, Hal.”

“I know,” he says, fingers sliding under his glasses, displacing them, “I know that.”

“Remember what we talked about earlier. I had to protect you. Protect _us_ , and what we’re fighting for.” His hand drops from Otacon’s chest, finally, grips the wheel. “This is bigger than the life or death of one person, of a hundred people. We’re talking about the future of the entire planet. I need you, Hal. I won’t let you die for nothing.”

_I need you._

The words scorch into his brain, overtake the panicky, fight-or-flight part of him that can’t stop seeing that man’s eyes, the sound of Snake’s ragged breathing as he’d effortlessly snapped his neck. The envelop around the part of him that sees this person, this weapon beside him. A new variable, an algorithm he’d carelessly overlooked before. 

He starts breathing normally, calm, even if it feels like cold pools of oil are slipping through his intestines. Snake visibly relaxes next to him, the creases in the corner of his eyes lightening, as he passes Otacon the digital camera.

Otacon doesn’t say anything as they speed to the next county line. Doesn’t speak as they park off in a ditch, watching the lethal shift of muscles as Snake peels out of his sneaking suit. Still silent, he takes over driving until they’re done, until they crash into their newest hovel, exhausted, with more work yet to be done.

He’s consumed with his laptop, uploading information and photographs and emails, when he senses Snake behind him. He turns, the soldier pulling up a flimsy aluminum chair, and they’re so close that Otacon could kiss him if he leaned in.

“Do you want to talk about it,” he suggests, more than asks. Otacon regards him with a measured expression, and it’s weird, because if he didn’t know any better he might think Snake were a little anxious. 

He looks down at his hands, where they’re poised on the keyboard. The status bar, tracking the progression on files Mei Ling is still uploading to the cloud. “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” is how he replies, not meeting Snake’s penetrating gaze, “Rationally, I recognize that you’re right. That he had to die.”

“Okay.”

“But there’s this… dissonance. Inside of me.” He chuckles, but it’s sad, humorless. “I’m having a hard time connecting the you that I live and work with, the you that’s saved the world, with the--”

“How I killed--”

“--with _that thing_ I saw kill that man. It was like there was _nothing_ inside of you.”

He finds the line of those pale eyes, meets his thousand-yard stare, that cuts right through the very heart of him. He breathes.

“Hal…”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy it?” His face flickers with confusion.

“Killing.”

He holds his gaze, and there’s no mask there, just plain and brutal competence.

“Sometimes. Yes.” 

Otacon draws in a sharp inhale.

“Have you ever wanted to-- I mean, if you had to, would you... kill me?”

Snake blinks, slow and predatory. 

“Only if it would save you from something worse.”

He considers. “What if I betrayed you. If I gave you a reason to want to hurt me?”

Those words, drilling deeper down, into something Otacon doesn’t like to acknowledge in himself. 

“Only if it would save you from something worse.”

Otacon looks away. “I... think I understand now.”

“Good.”

He arcs out of the chair in a smooth movement, puts distance between them. Universes apart. 

Otacon turns back to his work.

* * *

He dreams about powerful, masculine hands on his throat. About crushing, excruciating pain, and the building terror of breathlessness. Beautiful release.

Otacon wakes up with his cock hard and leaking in his boxers. He steals off to the bathroom, burning with shame. 

Snake doesn’t look. Lights another cigarette. Bides his time.

For the next few weeks, Otacon hovers around like a shadow. They don’t speak about anything beyond work, even if Snake chases after the physical space between them, is always around when he turns. Otacon can’t bring himself to pull away.

The information they post is taken down as quickly as it’s uploaded. Articles, editorials start to pop up. Was this an act of terrorism? Was that explosion really just a botched training exercise, like the government reported? What about those shadowy photos that keep getting taken down? Say, have you heard of this book going around?

Otacon sets up bots to automatically reload pages, increase their hit counter, so they pop up first on the search feeds, RSS feeds, information overload, so it’s harder to censor off the web. Total market saturation. Only a ripple in the water.

He can’t watch anime. He can’t sleep. Food tastes like dust in his mouth. He can’t focus on anything beyond his work. He hollows himself into a shell, wakes up hunched over his laptop.

He does not stop. He deserves no reprieve.

Otacon works.

* * *

“We can’t do this,” is what Snake leads with, when Otacon finally has to take a break. He stares off at the wall, can’t look at his partner, who’s too close on the worn-in sofa next to him. “I can’t live with you like this. You have to talk to me.”

Otacon covers his face. He’s been anticipating this for days now.

“I’m just-- I’m dealing with it. Trying to. I know. Logically, what happened makes sense, but I--”

“I set Big Boss on fire, in Zanzibar Land. With a lighter and a can of lacquer spray.” 

Otacon lowers his hands, turns to look at his partner.

“I can still remember the stench of his melting flesh. I can picture the look on his face as I watched him burn to death.”

There. That far-away look in his eyes, searching for something, from him.

“You asked me if I enjoy it. Killing. I gave you an honest answer. I owe you that, Hal. There is a part of me that is able to separate the concept of a human being with an expendable obstacle in the way of my objective. There is a part of me that feels alive when I’m someone is dying at my own hands.”

“I know.”

“It doesn’t mean that you can’t hate me for doing it so easily. It’s okay. I get it. But you still have to talk to me, if we’re going to keep doing this.”

Otacon closes his mouth. Opens it again.

“You _do_ want to keep doing this, right?” The sharp tinge of doubt on his voice, and Otacon thinks maybe he’s preparing to be betrayed again. How many times has this happened to him, before? How many people had carefully built him into this machine, only to look back on their own creation in disgust?

“I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” Genuine curiosity. 

“No. But I am afraid.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

“No. Not you.” He pauses. “I’m afraid of what you’re capable of. Of what you can do.”

Of what you might do to me. This goes unsaid.

“Right,” he says. Otacon replaces his glasses on his face. He watches the realization sweep over Snake, as he understands his words, piecing them apart.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.” He reaches for the pack of smokes on the coffee table. Slides one between his lips. “For what it’s worth, Hal. You make me want to not hate myself. You make me want to believe there’s some kind of greater purpose for… this.”

Otacon’s eyes follow Snake’s hands. Snake’s powerful, capable, _horrible_ hands, the Zippo strangled between his fingers.

He reaches forward, gently disentangles the lighter, Snake leaning forward to dip the cigarette into the flame. Smoke blossoms around them in a suffocating haze, and Otacon breathes in, lets it permeate his bloodstream like poison.

“There is. What you can do… you don’t have to waste it. You can choose to use it,” He stares at Snake’s mouth, “Help me protect the world from what _I_ did to it. It’s what we owe.”

He smiles, finally, a sad little something that pulls at the corner of his lip. He looks away.

“I guess we’re both monsters, huh.”

“Not to me, Hal.”

A hand sets down, warm and weighted, on Otacon’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he says, closing his eyes. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, that was a doozy. I told you guys this was a slow build. Ah, I love writing these two. Gets me right in the fuzzy bits.
> 
> I love constructive criticism, comments, gushing, all of the above. You can find me at highandholy.tumblr.com.
> 
> The next segment of this series is already started, and a little more light-hearted than the ending of this entry. These two. Sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this entire thing in a blaze of glory in one day. I'm ridiculously proud of this thing. I hope you enjoy it, and leave a comment if you do.
> 
> I can be found at highandholy.tumblr.com.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Else If](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5935774) by [revolvershalashaskas (orphan_account)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/revolvershalashaskas)




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